BOOK GIVEAWAY: Thunder Pug by Kim Norman

Author Kim Norman has a new picture book titled, THUNDER PUG. It is available in bookstores now. Kim has agreed to share a book with one lucky winner. All you have to do to get in the running is to leave a comment. Reblog, tweet, or talk about it on Facebook with a link and you will get additional chances to win. Just let me know the other things you do to share the good news, so I can put in the right amount of tickets in my basket for you.

Sharing on Facebook, Twitter, reblogging really helps spread the word for a new book. Thanks for helping Kim!

BOOK’S DESCRIPTION:

“Navigating friendships and popularity can be difficult for youngsters; Percy is a shining example of empowerment.” —Kirkus“This sweet and giggle-inducing story carries a great message about how acceptance of a friend’s new role and a little independence can strengthen a friendship.” —BooklistWhat’s a superhero without a sidekick? This delightful follow-up to the popular Puddle Pug brings back that perfectly THUNDER-ful pug-and-pig pair: Percy and Petunia.

Percy the Pug and Petunia the pig are the very best of pals . . . until Petunia wins a blue ribbon at the county fair. Suddenly, she has no time for hide-and-seek or lapping puddles, cheek-to-cheek. But when Percy finds a faded comic book in a puddle, the lonely pug dons a cape and takes on a new persona: THUNDER PUG! Even though being a superhero is exciting, Percy knows he’s missing something. Only when “Pink Lightning” (aka Petunia) joins him, and the two are “side by sidekick” again, are they truly living the heroic life!

BOOK’S JOURNEY: Thunder Pug’s journey

The book is a sequel to Puddle Pug, which came out about 4 years earlier. Even Puddle Pug was a departure for me, rather different from most of my Sterling books, which are all in rhyme, with most of them being new spins on old, public domain songs. Writing rhyme comes easily to me. Plotting… not so much. So Puddle Pug took a lot of tries and retries before I got it to a place that my agent felt it was ready to send out, with many more revisions for my editor once the book had been accepted. (And I confess: I knew this particular editor owned — or had owned — a pug when I came up with the original story, so I thought perhaps she’d have a soft spot in her heart for my little Percy.)

Puddle Pug did well. Thanks to Keika Yamaguchi’s adorable, heartfelt illustrations, it received excellent reviews. After publication it was licensed to Scholastic which released a companion CD. So I was pleased when my editor asked if I’d be interested in writing a sequel. Now here’s something else I probably shouldn’t share out loud: I came up with the “thunder” superhero idea… in church. Hey, sometimes my mind wanders. Actually, I didn’t think of “Thunder Pug,” even though I was process of ruminating about a pug sequel around that time. I thought of “Thunder Duck.” Somehow, that just struck me as funny — although I maintained proper Methodist decorum during my brainstorm. I always check title ideas, though, and discovered — alas — there is a company called Thunderduck that makes boats. Not that I couldn’t still use it, possibly, but I continued to play with other iterations: Thunder Pup, etc. Finally I realized it was a perfect sequel idea for Puddle Pug.

But that’s when the hard work started. I may have mentioned: plotting is not one of my strengths. As with its predecessor, the book does contain a few rhyming couplets, but it’s mostly in prose, so I couldn’t rely on facile rhymes to distract readers from a missing or uneven plot. I also struggled with a central theme: was it friendship? loneliness? Those been paired themes in Puddle Pug, so I didn’t want to go back to the same… pig trough, as it were. My critique group pals (we call ourselves the PBJeebies) deserve superhero capes of their own for mightily reading and rereading Percy’s pesky plot line until I finally had something that could work… but not before I had shed literal tears of frustration over the manuscript. So thank you (in alphabetical order) to Tammi Sauer, Janee Trasler and Jessica Young for your valor. And the same to my agent and editor, who helped me shape the story into something Keika could, again, bring heroically to life.

Okay, enough with the superhero metaphors! Well, maybe allow me one more: I feel lucky to have so many brave colleagues willing to enter the fray when I’m battling my evil twin nemeses: theme and plot!

KIM’S BIO:

Kim Norman’s children’s books have been published by Dial, Dutton, Sterling and Scholastic. Her books have been well-reviewed in publications such as the New York Times and Publishers Weekly, and have been distributed in Scholastic Book Fairs and take-home Club fliers. Kim has built a national reputation as a school presenter, having done author visits in nearly two hundred schools around the country.

She is an actress and singer, and has been known to practice her time step in a grocery line. Her books often feature animals, which were a big part of her childhood. Family pets included unusual critters such as a squirrel, an iguana and a raccoon named Danny.

Kim lives in Smithfield, Virginia, with the REAL Crocodaddy (her husband of more than 25 years.) They’re the parents of two grown sons and two pug mix dogs, and the grandparents of one very large, shaggy Newfoundland.

Kim thank you for sharing your book and its’ journey with us. It looks like such a sweet book. I am sure the winner will be very happy to receive it.

I enjoyed reading Kim’s “Thunder Pug” writing journey with what sounds like an adorable book. Like her, my first impulse is usually to write in rhyme and let it carry (or limit 🙂 the story. Congratulations to Kim on a wonderful story told (mostly) in prose.

Great post. I love reading books wherein the main characters are animals. I’m looking forward to reading about Thunder Pug. As a proud owner of two King Charles Cavaliers, I know how inspirational our pups can be.

I love the illustrations. Pugs and pigs seem like the perfect characters for children’s books. They seem childlike themselves. My friend in high school had a pug and he was definitely like her child. Looking forward to reading this one. Thanks for sharing.